


Radiance Lost

by owlgal



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Betrayal, Book 03: Oathbringer Spoilers, CFSWF, Death, Despair, Honorspren, Knights Radiant, Loss, Other, Recreance, Soldiers, Spoilers, Spren Perspective, War, Windrunner - Freeform, death of friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25564633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlgal/pseuds/owlgal
Summary: Kelrian grew into a long, heavy Blade, and Hilla slammed him down into the first of the Parsh. Again Kelrian sliced, through leather and skin and muscle and bone. The music of battle was all around him as metal rang against metal, soldiers roared in fury and screamed with pain, and boots slapped against stone and slipped in blood. Underneath it, as always, the Parsh sang their angry songs of slaughter.*   *   *This is an exploration of the Recreance from the perspective of a Radiant spren. If you haven't read Oathbringer, please do not read this story. Come back to it after you finish ;)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Radiance Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this after reading the Syl interlude that Brandon sent out with his newsletter, but it doesn't contain any spoilers from that interlude.

Kelrian danced his way through battle. He slashed and spun and thrust and parried and sank through enemy flesh, seeking to break the gemhearts where his enemies hid their powers deep inside. He became whatever weapon Hilla needed as she Lashed the pair in every direction, falling from the sky again and again into the raging battle below.

Hilla held Kelrian out to the side and he became a long scythe. She swung him in a wide arc and he sliced cleanly through dozens of the enemy Parsh, leaving them heaps of corpses with graying skin and burned out eyes. Hilla dropped down among the dead, Lashing them one at a time into the ranks of Parsh beyond, and clearing an open space around a beleaguered group of human soldiers. Kelrian felt Hilla’s distaste at the slaughter, a reaction he shared. Killing had never come easily to either of them, but it had to be done. This was a war, and they had to protect their world. Even from its original inhabitants.

Hilla spotted a flare of dark fire and light on the battlefield and Lashed herself towards it, Kelrian transforming into a more aerodynamic spear. There had been some heated discussions among the Windrunners when Melishi had proposed this battle to the Orders. Honor’s strange behavior, and the strange things he said, made it difficult for the Windrunners to determine who deserved their protection. Some had said that the best way they could protect those who needed them was to fight, others to stay away. But Melishi had been persuasive. He argued that there was a way to help both the humans and the Parsh. That as long as Odium’s spren were contained, they could make a world of peace together. He said he could capture the enemy commander, a monstrous spren who fed the Parsh with Voidlight and gave them powerful abilities to match those of the Radients. He would ensure that what happened at Stormseat would never happen again.

It was probably that last argument that had convinced the Windrunners, Kelrian thought as Hilla landed next to a pair of Stonewards. They were surrounded by a dozen of those Parsh forms that could rot and decay anything they touched, even the rock the Stonewards would normally use to slow and trap their enemies. These Parsh were dangerous to any army in the field, but Hilla never fought _on_ the field.

Kelrian felt Hilla’s joy as she launched them into the air. After all these years, neither of them grew tired of flight. Even when it came with the burden of death. Kelrian grew into a long, heavy Blade, and Hilla slammed him down into the first of the Parsh. Again Kelrian sliced, through leather and skin and muscle and bone. The music of battle was all around him as metal rang against metal, soldiers roared in fury and screamed with pain, and boots slapped against stone and slipped in blood. Underneath it, as always, the Parsh sang their angry songs of slaughter.

Hilla carved through the attacking Parsh one by one. Some tried to evade them, but Kelrian cut them down. Others attacked Hilla, but her brilliant blue Plate deflected their attempts. One even grabbed at Kelrian as Hilla swung him in a wide arc, trying to decay his shining Blade. Kelrian sheared through his fingers and they turned gray as their connection to the Parsh’s soul was severed. Hilla severed their spine on the next swing, and the Parsh dropped with smoking sockets for eyes.

Their attack had been enough for the Stonewards to go on the offensive once more, so Hilla Lashed herself into the sky and searched for their next target. They were both distracted by the sight at the forward edge of the battle. An enormous cloud of dark smoke obscured that part of the field, lit from the inside by flashes of colored light. Melishi’s strike team was down there, battling Ba-Ado-Mishram. They would wear her down enough that Melishi could trap her inside a perfect gem. She was the one providing power to the Parsh, and once she was trapped they would have to withdraw from the battle. It was the only way to win the war without killing every last one of the Parsh - or summoning the kinds of monumental power that had broken Stormseat. It was the only way to win the war and still have a world worth living in.

Hilla knew all the secrets now, everything that Honor - and at times even the true spren - had kept hidden from the humans. It scared Kelrian sometimes, how his Radiant’s mind now roiled with doubt, stretching the bond that linked their souls. Today, she was focused. Ready for battle, eager to protect. Tomorrow might be a different story. The war would be over. They had to win today. They had to protect the world.

“Melishi needs to hurry up and finish this,” Hilla muttered in a voice that was only for Kelrian to hear. “I’m just about done with killing.”  
_We kill to protect, just as we always have,_ Kelrian answered through their bond. _You saved those soldiers, and the Stonewards. If we hadn’t helped them, they would have died.  
_“I wouldn’t have had to protect any of them if we hadn’t started this war in the first place.” Kelrian could feel a helpless fury building up inside her. It stretched the bond between them even further.

_Don’t panic,_ Kelrian told himself. _You’ve been through this before._ Kelrian had bonded five humans in his centuries of life, allowing them to become Knights Radiant who protected the helpless. All of them had had their moments of doubt and difficulty; humans were fickle like that, especially around the Third and Fourth Ideals. But Hilla had been something of a prodigy. She’d sworn the Fifth Ideal decades ago. They hadn’t had this kind of trouble since Hilla had been a brash young twenty-something struggling to find her purpose. Radiants of the Fifth Ideal weren’t supposed to feel this way.

_You and I didn_ ’ _t start this war.  
_“No, but humans started it. Our greed, our selfishness. Maybe it _would_ be better to just surrender. Let the Parsh have their world.”  
_Maybe you_ ’ _re right. But you agreed to follow Melishi_ ’ _s plan. You said it was our best option.  
_“It is, if he can actually pull it off.”  
_He hasn_ ’ _t failed yet. And if he does, it won_ ’ _t matter to us anyway.  
_“You’re right, as always Kelrian.” Hilla sighed. “But still, Melishi needs to get this over with.”

That seemed to be good enough for Hilla, so Kelrian tried to settle his own nerves. Everything would be fine. It would all be over soon.

Hilla Lashed herself towards another Windrunner who seemed to be having trouble. It was Gerah, one of the last of Hilla’s squires to become Radiant before the Great Father, Honor, had stopped making sense. Now, there were no more new Radiants.

Gerah was trying to reach a group of embattled Truthwatchers whose dim glow suggested they were running out of Stormlight, but was blocked by a double squad of huge Parsh with overgrown carapace ridges who were throwing stones with surprising speed and accuracy. A few stones weren’t enough to stop a Windrunner in flight, but dozens striking the same spot were enough to break open their Plate.

Kelrian formed into a long, curved shield as Hilla dropped down in between Gerah and the brutish Parsh. The pair stood firm against the onslaught as Gerah took a moment to recover then saluted and sped off towards the Truthwatchers. The young Radiant dropped a pouch glowing with infused gems among the group, then signaled to Hilla. The Windrunners attacked as one.

This Parsh form was big, but they were fast and powerful. Kelrian couldn’t be a spear or a scythe because they might catch his haft. Instead, he became a sword longer than Hilla was tall. On the other side of the group, his brother, Cernel, was doing the same for Gerah. The pair of Radiants danced their way through the air, staying just out of the Parsh’s reach. Once the Truthwatchers were revitalized, the Windrunners Lashed themselves into the sky as one.

Except, Gerah wasn’t there. Hilla had used a triple Lashing to take her up high above the battlefield, so when she heard the scream she didn’t have time to stop. Before she had turned around, the enormous Parsh were already pulling Gerah down towards the ground.

Hilla Lashed herself towards Gerah, but she was too late. The Parsh surrounded Gerah, crushing Plate and ripping it off with their bare hands. Purple and orange mixed together as fearspren and painspren grew up in tangle around the young Radiant, then vanished in a burst as one of the massive Parsh ripped Gerah’s exposed head free.

The Parsh turned towards Hilla, red eyes glowing, grinning. It threw Gerah’s head directly at Hilla, who didn’t have time to Lash herself out of the way. The head struck her armor as she dove down towards the Parsh, leaving a streak of red blood against the shining blue armor. Hilla finally reached the enemy Parsh and swung Kelrian as a long Blade. He felt her rage, and was happy enough to send the group that had killed Gerah to Damnation.

A brilliant flash of light turned the battlefield white, giving Hilla a stark view of her friend’s bloodied corpse. Gerah’s armor no longer glowed. It was beginning to dissipate, leaving behind the headless, broken body of the young warrior. Cernel’s Blade was gone, and the enemy’s spren would be waiting for him in Shadesmar.

Hilla screamed and charged at the Parsh, too distraught to Lash herself into the sky. Through their bond, Kelrian felt her pain, her rage, her desire to kill them all. Maybe he should have warned her, reminded her why she was here. But her pain was so deep it became his pain, and he joined in her battle cry as they sliced through rank after rank of enemy Parsh.

Hilla felt like she had failed, and that failure resounded through her bond with Kelrian. It overwhelmed his senses. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t feel, he didn’t _understand_ what they were doing. All he could do was kill, over and over again. And he wanted to. They deserved it, after all. For what they’d done to Gerah. What they’d done to Kelrian’s brother. Hilla swung Kelrian, and Kelrian killed, and for the first time, it was easy.

Then Hilla stopped. Kelrian felt dazed. He couldn’t think. Why had they stopped? Did he _want_ to keep going? Keep killing? He felt horror growing inside Hilla. What was wrong? As Kelrian began to understand what Hilla was seeing, her horror became his own.

Rank after rank of Parsh warriors stood drooping and dull eyed, weapons held listlessly or dropped to the ground. None of them wore warform. The squads of Parsh wearing Voidbringer forms were nowhere to be seen. Hilla turned around, and Kelrian gaped at the sheer destruction they had wrought. Hundreds of Parsh, all wearing the same form, lay there with burned out eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. No warriors, no monsters. Only a few of them were even holding weapons.

“They couldn’t fight back.”

Kelrian heard Hilla’s distant whisper, and then there was only pain.

* * * * * 

Kelrian was trapped, frozen as the sword Hilla had used to kill so many unresisting Parsh, held in place by the wavering bond between them. All he could feel from her was unreasoning hatred. Hatred for herself, for him, for the Parsh she had killed for not being able to stop her. Distantly he could feel his cousins, the windspren who made up her armor, also trapped by Hilla’s pain. She had sworn Ideals, and she felt she had broken them all.  
Sometimes, images and words would rise up through the pain as Hilla tried to understand what had happened.

Melishi sat on the ground, staring at an enormous emerald that pulsed with an angry light.  
“It was supposed to fix everything,” Melishi whispered, over and over. “He told me it would fix everything.”

One of the Edgedancers tried to talk with a Parsh woman, but shook her head and stepped away.  
“It’s like their minds are gone,” she said, tears falling unchecked down her face. “There’s nothing left. We stole it all away.”

“How many did we kill?” a Lightweaver asked.  
“Nearly two-thirds,” a Skybreaker replied. “I would like to formally suggest that we execute the rest-”

“It’s clear that we can’t be trusted.” The speaker was Belner, the highest ranking Windrunner who had survived. “We shouldn’t have these powers. No one should, human or Parsh. Now that they’re… now that Ba-Ado-Mishram can’t bond with them, we must give up our powers as well. Honor was right-”

“It was supposed to fix everything.”

“We’ll take them somewhere,” an Edgedancer suggested desperately. “We can take care of them. Maybe they’ll start to recover-”

The Skybreakers left, rising off into the night. They left the rest of the orders to handle the dirty work.

“If humanity needs us so much, let’s give them what they deserve.”

“It was supposed to fix everything.”

And then they were flying again. Hilla should have felt joy, but all Kelrian could sense through the fog was her hatred. She even hated the sky.

Kelrian felt Hilla land hard on the rock, felt his metal body clatter on the stone, felt Hilla walk away. He felt her reject him for the first time, snapping the bond that had sustained them both for thirty-six years. Then he felt nothing.

Some time later, hands lifted Kelrian’s Blade off the rock. Dimly Kelrian reached out towards the person who held him, but recoiled from the soul he found there.

_Hilla, no! Where did you go! Hilla!_

Kelrian’s thoughts weren’t words. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t think. He could hardly feel. He felt his bearer swing his Blade. He felt himself slice through flesh and bone. He felt pain.

Kelrian screamed.


End file.
